dear mn hq why are so many disablist threads being left up

[Samcro]

one today for instance and mn hq post
"We don't think that this thread is disablist, it is a valid discussion that we don't think should be shut down. "

yet it has obviously been reported.
cause hurt and upset
how is that making life easier(or better) for the sn community`?

or this message from mn hq
That CBeebies is just far too PC
Thread deleted
Message from MNHQ: Thanks so much for all the reports about this.

Although there has been some interesting debate and discussion, we do agree that the OP and some of what ensues is disablist, so we have decided to delete.

how can these be interesting debates??
\not long ago mn hq said that they were going to be quicker dealing with this stuff
what happened??

You are right, tabulah

I like that wording.

Jason - You asked about how long that 'horrible' post was up for. It was up for about an hour. I wasn't on when it was written and went back through the thread to have a look and I can remember making a comment about it being still there. I reported it and when I looked again, a few minutes later, it had gone. There were posts after it already deleted when I checked the first time.

Thank you. I've been advised to ask MNHQ through a written Freedom of information request. So that's what i'm going to do.

NeedAnotherGlass

Can you please pm me with a link to the thread containing that post, if it's still up i would like to use it another example of hate speech being allowed to stand.

"We simply meant that Down's Syndrome could not be used as an example in this specific instance as there isn't a similar diagnostic process and that is what the thread was about."

It wasn't about the diagnostic process... it's about not seeing a diagnoses of ASD in the same way as other disabilities, people don't think it's s valid medical diagnoses, and frankly mumsnet agree with them!

the posts people have problems with are the ones which dismiss the disability as something everyone has but some people just live with, others use as an excuse to make a fuss / get benefits / act naughty and so on.

The first post of that thread wasn't asking about the Diagnostic proccess was it, It was outright dismissing the disability.

Mumsnet still don't seem to get this.

people are trying to point out that you wouldn't let other posts dismissing other disabilities stay up!

*We wanted to clarify about the post mentioning Down's syndrome made by me on the previous thread.

You want to? You don't feel that you ought to? You don't feel it was owed to excuse explain the wording, after it upset and offended a number of supposedly valued posters? Did it take you three whole days to decide that you wanted to clarify?

Frigging formatting error, oops. Quote from RebeccaMumsnet was intended to be emboldened.

Wow Ive just got it. I knew it was wrong what happened, and disablist. mn hqs response was badly worded....I got that.
but i never (yep and I live in the sn world) got the bit about "everyones a little bit autistic" and how that makes autism look like not a real disability.
tbh I have never really thought about it as my dd has cp and there are a lot of similarities. well its all the brain. so I just always insert CP when another disability is mention in a disablist way.
i hate the them and us on here ...that is if you have a visible disability its some how easier.

"i hate the them and us on here ...that is if you have a visible disability its some how easier."

If it helps, I don't think there's anything easier about any disability.

I do think though that if you're discussing an obviously visible disability (general you're not you in particular) it never becomes a discussion about whether it's a real diagnosis, or whether it's a helpful diagnosis, or whether it even exists as a disability.

Which isn't right.

If it's disablism to say that about visible disabilities could be not real disabilities, it should be for less visible ones as well, but it happens all the time with autism.

I think that's why it's been very autism specific btw, because it very quickly becomes obvious if you're living with autism in anyway (parent, carer, somebody with it) that actually there's a fairly widespread opinion that it's not quite as real as other disabilities.

Everyone's a bit autistic - we had this from ds's paed and clinical psych, from teachers, from my diagnosing psych. Simon Baron-Cohen says this. Pretty much everyone I have ever spoken to about ASD says that all people are on the spectrum.
How do we fight this opinion when it is one of the main things that people know about ASD?

People say this, and they have no idea how crap it makes people feel, like "we all have those traits, but you're allowing yourself to be bothered by them", or "we all have traits, but look at me, I manage things so much better than you do".
Or my psych telling me that ASD was a tiny part of me, like having blue eyes. Bullshit!

Canyou imagine.. "Everyone has a bit of downs syndrome, but most of us don't let it bother us, but if i was born today you can bet i'd have the lable."

Everyone is a little bit quadriplegic..... .....label

To someone with CFS - we're all a bit tired sometimes (actually I have heard this kind of thing in relation to chronic fatigue and depression, anxiety, that kind of thing).

Exactly.

The inability to split commonly held personality or behavioural and developmental characteristics from autistic traits was what frustrated me when my DC seemed to be fair game for every unqualified person to offer their opinion that my DC should be diagnosed with Autism. No matter that my DC had already undergone assessment and had a quite different set additional needs.

I think it is the flip side of raising an awareness of Autism. The problem is that this is done too much without improving expertise, especially where it really matters. That is in those professionals, who regularly deal with our children, make important decisions concerning their learning and who opinions generally listened to and respected, get it very wrong.

Not that I think Autism is worse or better, necessarily, than the additional needs my DC was diagnosed with. Just that you don't treat a person with arthritis the same as you do someone with a broken leg.

Just found and read this article which goes with the jist of what we are saying

unstrangemind.wordpress.com/2015/12/05/everyones-a-little-autistic/

"Don’t do this! When you use someone else’s disability as an adjective for your quirks or otherwise reduce it to a one-dimensional descriptor, you are making light of their entire life. And when you say everyone is a little bit autistic, you are trivializing what it actually means to be Autistic."

Of course if everybody was actually a 'bit autistic' why would they find it so difficult to support those people who have a diagnosis of Autism within their everyday life? It would be simple, wouldn't it? All the adjustments, in schools for example, would be made as a matter of course...

The trouble is people look at a list of characteristics of autism and see one thing that they do sometimes. They ignore the fact that it's a compilation of several behaviours that leads to diagnosis.

I have a thing about colours. They have to match and I can't wear clothes that clash. That makes me a bit OCD. No it doesn't. It makes me someone who's picky about colours.

I will never forget a goady fucker saying "this thread is so autistic". Wtaf does that even mean?!

I find it really upsetting that such attitudes trivialise something that causes huge numbers of people immense heartache and distress.
Ds is 21 now, he is wonderful, I didn't have to pursue a diagnosis the paed saw him for the first time and said autism (assessments then followed for diagnosis) but I've spent the last 19 years fighting the system to ensure he made the best progress possible alongside supporting a child that was pretty much feral until he was seven, non verbal until he was seven, has never slept a full night and is regularly stressed and distressed by events that others don't even notice.
His autism isn't a label, it's a diagnosis, a disability and a life sentence for him and me too as he doesn't fit the narrow remit required for supported living and won't ever be independent either.
To read posts that are allowed to stand where posters question whether ASD is a disability, whether ASD is down to poor parenting, whether ASD children aren't just brats or that trivialise ASD by dismissing it as a different way of seeing the world or suggesting we are all on the spectrum hurts.
Parents and posters with an ASD themselves are then expected to educate these ignorant posters without support from MNHQ (because they don't fully grasp why the posts are hurtful and disablist as illustrated yesterday and leave them to "encourage debate") and are then subject to taunts about the SN brigade (which is dismissive and disparaging in its own right).
It wouldn't be allowed to stand if a poster wrote about a child with CP that they would walk if the parents made them, that the child doesn't walk because he's a brat, that they perhaps have CP as well but only mildly etc etc but it appears that ASD is somehow fair game and not a "real disability"
I think MNHQ's response on this thread has been pretty poor tbh and the lack of engagement I think is telling and probably points to there being no changes on the boards.

Are MNHQ even reading this or have they said their bit now and busy making money?

Mobility scooters have been subtly mentioned on a thread re obesity. I pointed it out and I'm now getting looks. Before I would report, but I'm honestly not sure right now (especially being Saturday) that mnhq would be interested. After all, linking to TIMC wouldn't really work.

Also I'm now doubting myself and wondering if, when it's something less blatant, maybe I am overreacting. Hmm...

I don't think they are reading I, and I don't think things will change.

I think it is definitely time for a break..maybe short..maybe not.